


space cowboy

by deniigiq



Series: Lighter Fluid Verse [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A big Oops on Wade and Clint's part, Chemical Weapons, Gen, Halloween, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team Red, Terrorists, Twitter, if not this is gonna be wild for you, if you've seen cowboy bebop the movie you're in good shape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 11:30:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21252695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: “What kind of pumpkin?” Clint asked. “Seems a little more like a Spiderman type of case if you know what I mean?”“The blimp kind,” Peter deadpanned.Sergeant Barnes’s attention came back to him.“Oh, I saw that movie,” he said. “The one with the bebops.”(A would-be terrorist tries to unleash a chemical weapon on the city via a giant pumpkin parade balloon. Team Red + Avengers handles it, but not without some obstacles.)





	space cowboy

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY HALLOWEEN MOTHERFUCKERS. 
> 
> I love this holiday. I also love Cowboy Bebop. If you have not seen it, have no fear. You only need to read one paragraph from the wiki to have an idea of what the fuck these people are talking about (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_Bebop:_The_Movie, last paragraph under 'plot.') and BAM you're up to date. 
> 
> Take this nonsense. We'll say Pete is around 19 and improving his relationship with the Avengers team somewhat, but you could imagine him younger if you want.
> 
> References to Wade-typical gore/dismemberment and ideas about chemical terrorism, so do what you need to to keep yourselves safe!

“BOO.”

Peter watched Wade go down hard and sighed as Matt stood over him, feet planted over his body, shoulders heaving.

Wade cackled.

Peter turned back to the crowd of kids clutching at each other before him.

“We’re here to help,” he assured them.

“BOO.”

“WADE.”

Peter ignored them. Sergeant Barnes and Clint did not.

“Is this going to go on all evening?” Clint asked.

Yes. It already had been.

“But he’s not even like, creeping up on him?” Clint pointed out.

“It’s the sound,” Peter said. “Anyways, this is my life now. But I need you two to focus. A pumpkin has been compromised. These are dire circumstances.”

Sergeant Barnes was not focusing. He was grinning over Peter’s shoulder where Matt was smashing fists into Wade’s ribs and shoulders and mugging up at him between shots.

“What kind of pumpkin?” Clint asked. “Seems a little more like a Spiderman type of case if you know what I mean?”

“The blimp kind,” Peter deadpanned.

Sergeant Barnes’s attention came back to him.

“Oh, I saw that movie,” he said. “The one with the bebops.”

“Chemical weapon,” Clint said sagely. “Alright, cool. That’s us, then. We gonna designate Red as the team canary or?”

“WADE.”

Matt sounded like a highschool kid whose friend kept tapping the shoulder opposite them from behind.

Peter sighed for the thousandth time that night.

“I need real professionals,” he explained to the behemoths before him.

Barnes and Barton exchanged a look, then shrugged.

“Can we do it in costumes?” Clint asked.

Clint wanted to be the lady with the huge boobs from Cowboy Bebop and Sergeant Barnes took up the job of being the lanky guy with the big hair to match him and one costume change later, Peter almost had the expertise he needed. Almost.

“Pete, don’t take this the wrong way but this is a little beneath me,” Mr. Stark said.

“We need someone who can fly,” Peter told him.

“Have you considered, perhaps, that this is a city-wide prank or—”

“I can fly!”

“WADE," Matt roared.

“THAT WASN’T EVEN ME.”

Peter wanted to know where the fuck Thor had hidden to pop out of thin air like that.

“I can fly,” Thor told Peter enthusiastically. “Let’s get bread.”

Oh. _So_ close.

“Let’s get _this_ bread,” Peter corrected him. Then went back to Mr. Stark. “We have located the compromised pumpkin blimp,” he said. “But I’m not going in there to poke at things. We need someone with a real suit to do that.”

Mr. Stark was confused.

Peter dug out his phone and brought up a clip of their current perp’s inspiration on Youtube. Mr. Stark watched it through whole way through with a hand over his mouth and beard. When it finished he cleared his throat.

“That’s creative,” he said.

“Yeah,” Peter agreed.

“So, we need to make it rain, then?” Mr. Stark asked.

Thor lit up and interrupted Wade and Matt’s banter to whisper to them what Peter was 99.9% sure was ‘let’s make it _rain_.’

“Well, ideally we need to remove the chemical weapon from inside the balloon before someone lights it up,” Peter said. “But I ain’t touching it with this suit. I like my lungs, thanks. And while Wade’s down to touch it, Wade is a walking matchstick, so we thought probably not. And the rest of them, I’ve got on the ‘track down the terrorist’ task for the sake of us all, so? Help? Please?”

Mr. Stark lifted an eyebrow at Peter’s shitty team.

“Yeah no,” he said, watching Barton shake his bared tits at JB. “Seeing that. Alright. Do we need people on crowd control?”

Peter thought about it. Half of the city would probably out in the streets to watch the parade, so that wasn’t such a bad idea.

“Yeah, you got any ideas for that?” he asked.

“This is exciting,” Ms. Romanoff said.

Barton bounced his eyebrows at her and gestured at the hair on his chest. She pursed her lips at it, then him. His face fell.

“Do you know if it’s just one balloon or if it’s all of them?” she asked Peter.

“No clue,” he told her.

“It’s probably all of them, then. Hm. This guy’s good.”

No, this guy watched too much anime. But sure, whatever you want. Get on the team, please.

“We need a distraction,” Peter told her. “Mr. Stark said to talk to you.”

Ms. Romanoff went still for a moment, then a grin spread across her face.

“Oh, I got your distraction,” she said. “You take all these boys to catch your terrorist. Stark and I will handle the parade.”

“No fireworks,” Peter said immediately. “Fire bad.”

“No fireworks,” Ms. Romanoff agreed.

“Not even poetic ones,” Peter made her promise.

“No poetry. Cross my heart.”

Yeah, no. He didn’t trust a single one of these so-called adults as far as he could throw them. But whatever, he had a terrorist to catch.

“Alright, old people,” he shouted, side-eying Ms. Romanoff as he went. “Distraction acquired, get your shit together, we’re off. No, Thor. You’re staying, sorry buddy, maybe next time.”

Peter was only 15 minutes into this descent into hell and he already understood why Cap had laughed on camera the other day when reporters had asked him if he’d be leading the Avengers again soon.

It was maddening.

Peter could cope with Matt and Wade being dumbasses for hours at a time. What he couldn’t cope with was the lethal mix that was Matt, Wade, Barton, _and_ Barnes. They all just magnified each other’s already vast annoying-ness.

To keep Barnes and Clint from flirting with Matt, Matt from flirting back, and Wade from threatening Barnes and Clint with castration in Matt’s unwilling defense, Peter split the group up and sent Clint and Wade to go find and interrupt the loading of the chemical weapons into the balloons, while he and Sergeant Barnes went up and tried to find ways that the balloons might be safely entered so that the loads of weapons in them could be removed by Mr. Stark when he was ready to go.

Peter sent Matt to go track the terrorist.

That was way harder than it sounded, but that was not Peter’s problem. He didn’t care how Matt found that asshole or what he did to him in the interim. Peter only cared that he find the guy before the balloons hit 6th Avenue.

Matt was positive that he could accomplish this goal. Peter thought that he got a thrill at the idea of being on a strict timeline. It was either that or he fucking loved balloons, but Peter was going to go out on a limb here and say that he just wanted to grind some teeth.

“I dunno kid, they’re pretty hollow. Not a whole lot of framing here inside,” Peter heard in the right ear of his suit as he inspected the balloon nearest him from his perch on the flat side of a building. A bunch of people down at streetlevel were taking pictures of him and giggling as though he was some kind of cat, pawing at a toy. He thought he saw a Ms. Romanoff-shaped figure moving ominously towards a fire hydrant down there.

“Copy that, Sarg,” he said. “I’m looking at the same thing. You think there are boxes of the stuff suspended in there or something?”

“Can’t tell,” Sergeant Barnes reported back. “Although if I had a flashlight I could.”

Peter looked left, then looked right, then went to the left again and went still.

“Flashlight acquired,” he said.

There were a couple ancient spotlights on the roof of one of the midtown buildings--an old theatre probably. Peter hopped out of his swing down onto the roof next to them and scurried off to chase the wires leading back from the pair to see if they were still connected to any power source or if he was looking at the fastest wire repair ever in his near future.

He found an old fuse box and flicked its switches on and off until the thing sparked. Something on the ground a few meters away sparked, too.

“This,” Peter decided, “Is a job for electrical tape.”

Uncle Ben would be so proud.

“Pete. When I said flashlight--”

“Shut up. Be grateful.”

Sergeant Barnes wasn’t grateful so much as puzzled.

“We’re just gonna shine ‘em down there, then?” he asked.

“No,” Peter scolded him. “It’s too bright still. We’ve gotta wait an hour.”

“What? And then just blast the things on? Not exactly inconspicuous, kiddo. That’ll cause mass panic.”

Peter scoffed.

“You,” he said, “Don’t spend enough time among the masses. They’ll think it’s just part of the show.”

Sergeant Barnes lifted an eyebrow at him, then shrugged.

“So entrances,” he said. “How does one get into a balloon?”

Good question. Peter was going with ‘carefully.’

Wade and Clint exploded the fourth balloon of the parade before the thing even properly got started, so, so much for discretion.

Mr. Stark stood with Peter and Sergeant Barnes on the edge of a roof. He turned back to them slowly.

“Was that the signal?” he asked. “Is this a vigilante signal? Or was that a Nat-distraction?”

Peter slapped a palm against his face and dragged it down in horror.

“No, that was a mistake,” Barnes told Mr. Stark gently.

Peter was going to find Wade and he was going to give him a dead arm for the next two weeks. Two. Count ‘em.

The rushing, screaming crowd around him in the street refused to keep calm; although, in terms of evacuating the immediate area, they were doing a great job. They were probably used to it from the last ten years of constantly being under siege.

Sergeant Barnes blasted a whistle over everyone that got folks’ attention real quick. He directed them all with callous authority to the nearest indoor facility and, because he was Sergeant Bucky Barnes, people shut the fuck up and followed the directive about six times more orderly and quietly.

“Stevie baby, you still in town?” Sergeant Barnes asked into his comm once the moving masses around him and Peter had taken it down a notch.

Peter heard Cap join the network with a groan.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“Oh, you know. Chemical weapon exploded. Imma need you to grab a mask and the shield and come down to direct traffic, darlin’,” Sergeant Barnes said.

Cap made another noise that Peter felt his own soul echo in response to and said he was on his way.

“After you,” Sergeant Barnes then said, gesturing gentlemanly before him for Peter.

The street was much less chaotic now.

Peter wondered if he’d ever attain the level of fame and trust that people put in Bucky Barnes. He decided he wouldn’t and instead gunned it down the street in the gutter to find Matt.

Matt had a man in a chokehold about 8 blocks away from the parade route. He had a busted lip and there was a gun laying in a pile of glass and rotting trash not too far away.

“Big boom?” Matt asked pleasantly while his mark screamed and struggled in his grip.

“Bad boom,” Peter said. “Give me him, you get inside and get as many folks in with you as possible. You’re a little too human for this one.”

“Oh, _very_ bad boom,” Matt said. “He’s all yours.”

Matt handed the mark over into Peter’s custody. Peter waited until he was gone before tightening his grip on the dude. He made a sharp gasp at the gesture.

“You’re gonna tell me how to neutralize this shit, or I’m gonna leave you to lay in Deadpool’s guts while they knit themselves back together,” Peter told him sweetly.

Normally, he wouldn’t be so graphic, but time was of the essence here.

The man in his arms gasped and swore. Peter tightened his grip further.

“Time’s a tickin’, friend,” he said. “I dunno about you, but I’ve got enhanced healing capacity, so I think I’m gonna come out of this okay. You? I won’t let you die.”

That got a reaction.

Yeah, sucker. How do you like them apples? No option for suicide now.

“You wanna talk?” Peter asked.

The man gasped and whined.

“Atta boy,” Peter said.

“So this is a big ‘no’ on the fireworks,” Ms. Romanoff said half an hour later when the whole city was under quarantine.

“This,” Peter told her while the emergency services and Stark Industry and SHIELD responders rushed all around them to take away the terrorist and go meet the public. “Is the biggest ‘no’ on the fireworks ever.”

Ms. Romanoff pouted.

Cap came in with Clint on his shoulder, looking mighty singed on all the parts of his body which had not been covered by his skimpy costume.

“This sucks,” Clint wheezed.

“Where’s Wade?” Peter asked him.

Clint winced as a medic approached him with horrified hands outstretched.

“In pieces,” he said. “He sat up and started waving around an arm just when these people came to grab me. I think he’s good.”

Oh, Wade.

Peter would get him a bucket of Reese Peanut Butter Cups and sour Warheads as a consolation prize.

“Did Red get inside?” Clint asked just as the oxygen mask went over his face.

“Pretty sure,” Peter sighed.

“Silver linings,” Clint said as he was herded away to have his burns examined.

A huge sound shook the building. Everyone assumed a braced position automatically.

Peter grimaced.

“Stark’s on it,” Cap reported. “That might have been him denotating something.”

Right. Of course.

“Ironman,” Ms. Romanoff said into her comm. “You alright there? Need some help?”

Another huge sound thrummed through the very floor under them.

“Ironman; come in, Ironman,” Cap snapped. “Tony, the object is to de-escal—”

“That ain’t me,” Mr. Stark’s voice barked through Peter’s suit comm. “It’s Wilson. He’s taking pot shots at all the damn balloons, can someone _please_ come get him? He’s not going anywhere fast.”

_Wade_.

_Why_?

“I’ll do it,” Peter sighed.

“No, you stay here,” Cap said. “I’ll go grab him.”

Ha. Yeah. Wade would _love_ that. He’d always dreamed of Cap carrying him off into the sunset. He probably hadn’t planned on that happening in pieces, though.

Another boom vibrated the walls.

“Tony—” Ms. Romanoff started.

“The good news is that it turns out there was only one balloon with the weapon shit in it,” Mr. Stark called back. “We now know this empirically. The other ones seem to be full of hydrogen.”

That was at least something, then. Thanks, Wade. You’re doing great, pal.

“Can we get a message out on social media and the news for people to stay inside?” Mr. Stark called. “We got folks out here trying to neutralize this shit, but the spectators keep passing out and it’s a fucking _problem_.”

Right, right.

Peter could handle that better than anyone. He let Cap and Ms. Romanoff go off to commandeer a news team, while he himself went to find a corner of the room which was more or less quiet.

He only needed a couple of minutes.

He had a secret weapon of his own.

He made Matt a DD account on twitter.

Matt loathed twitter with every fiber of his being. He loathed tweets. He loathed the reading of tweets. He loathed the fact that the word ‘tweet’ was a verb no longer just applied to birds.

But, unfortunately for him, the greater New York population practically lived off of twitter. Peter’s verified account (which he was not a little proud of) had millions of followers. He tried to use it only for good, but occasionally, when there was something as appalling as a pineapple on pizza debate going on, he felt the need to add Spiderman’s voice to the chaos.

He was only a man, after all.

So he made Matt an account and tweeted out a link to it.

Then he played a fun game of building-tag, ducking from one non-contaminated air bubble to the next, until he found Matt chilling with a load of costumed highschoolers in a school auditorium Hell’s Kitchen.

Matt was flirting with the principal. The principal was 60 years old and balding.

Matt had the whole room’s attention, just how he liked it, and it was clear by the time Peter arrived to the scene, that he’d had it for a while now.

“Oh, hey,” Matt said amiably. “It’s a spider.”

The whole auditorium turned Peter’s way.

“Sup?” he greeted.

The whole place was aghast.

“Leave that poor citizen alone, DD,” Peter said. “Come with me. Imma make you a star.”

Matt weighed that and sniffed.

“Hard pass,” he said.

“Too bad,” Peter said. “I made you a twitter. I need you to make a PSA.”

Matt started cackling. It made the students all start giggling along with him.

“Daredevil does not make PSAs,” Matt said over the crowd. “Try me again on Tuesday, though. I’ll get a load of ‘no’s lined up for you.”

“If Daredevil makes a PSA—for the good of the city, humanity, etc. etc—then Spiderman will consider deleting his number out of Deadpool’s phone and keeping it that way for a whole week,” Peter bargained over all the heads in front of him. They all swiveled back to see how Matt would react.

He had Matt’s full attention now.

“Daredevil accepts your absurd offer,” Matt decided. “Come here and show grandpa how to make some tweets.”

Matt’s first tweet into the world was “hello public. I have been coerced into giving the following psa: the air will kill you with prolonged contact friends. Professional recommendation: get scarce. Preferably indoors. Less preferably underground. Least preferably on the F line, but you do you. #psanyc”

Peter retweeted this. Then asked everyone in the auditorium very nicely if they’d retweet it from him.

They were all very kind to do so. Within moments, Matt had thousands of followers which he celebrated by asking the room at large what the fuck was the matter with his phone now. Why was it making that godforsaken sound?

The students got a kick out of that and Peter had unleashed a shitstorm of actual, useful information.

He sent out his own series of tweets and then told everyone to stay inside until an all-clear was sounded.

“Use protection,” he told Matt on the way out. Matt saluted him and beamed at the principal who went white in horror.

Peter left to the sound of uproar in the auditorium.

He ducked back into Stark Tower and was met by a pile of Wade, the largest piece of which was drumming its three fingers against his cheek.

“Well, well, well,” Wade said, “Look who’s finally arrived.”

Peter crouched down next to Wade and his tarp of limbs. 

“They getting you help, Wade?” he asked.

Wade sniffed.

“Gettin’ me help,” he scoffed. “I don’t need no fuckin’ help. Look at me, Pete. Do I look like I need help?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I’ve been sayin’,” Wade huffed with his nose in the air.

Peter sat down next to him and wrapped his hands around his own ankles.

“I’ll guard your kneecaps for you,” he said.

“Good,” Wade snapped. “I’m preoccupied over here with all these fuckin’ femurs anyways.”

Peter sat with him until Sergeant Barnes came over to observe thoughtfully with his hands on his hips. He had with him a handful of paramedics who were at a loss for how to approach this situation.

With Wade and his limbs carried off somewhere for some cool patchwork action and with Matt’s hashtag starting to trend, Peter decided that he’d done some pretty good work for the day. He couldn’t go home yet because all the old people around him were adamant that he, as a young person, was to remain indoors until the all-clear had been sounded.

He was manhandled by many people with more muscles than himself into a room with Clint and his new friend the oxygen tank.

Someone had blessedly found him a load of weird clothes to wear in place of his destroyed costume.

“Oh, hey, kid,” Clint said. “You also here for medically-enforced Quiet Halloween?”

More or less.

“Cool, we’re watching _Hocus Pocus_. Pull up a chair.”

There were no chairs. This was the ‘you are not trusted with furniture’ room. There were only cheerfully colored beanbags and plants.

Peter sat on the floor next to Clint’s beanbag and oxygen tank and logged on to twitter to watch videos of the ghost stories Matt was inflicting upon his captive audience in the auditorium back in Hell’s Kitchen. He’d commandeered a handful of students to act it out for the rest of them on stage while he narrated at stage left.

At about 11pm, Sergeant Barnes came into the room—now occupied by Peter, Clint, Ms. Romanoff and Thor—to announce that the all-clear had just been approved.

“Steve got to pick the alarm, though, so get ready for VE-Day,” Sergeant Barnes said.

And just on time, air sirens started blaring.

They all heard Cap crowing in delight a little ways further down the hall.

“Steve, you’re triggering all the elderly in the damn city,” Sergeant Barnes shouted, leaving the rest of them to decide if they were staying or going.

“Let’s go fight some Nazis!” Cap called back.

“Honey, they ain’t in the streets anymore, they’ve all got cellphones and transit,” Sergeant Barnes’s softening voice lectured.

“Cool,” Clint said. “So bets on if the trains are running: going once—”

Ms. Romanoff stood up and left the room.

Peter got home at midnight. The streets were crazy. People were in oddly high spirits for having been confined indoors for several consecutive hours.

Peter thought maybe the quarantine had turned into a community building exercise. It certainly seemed that people were fucking stoked to be unleashed back out upon the parade route.

He was happy for them.

He was happy for himself, too. He got to take the train home in costume without being That Guy for once.

He got home and fell onto the couch and May came busting out of the kitchen with a ‘Happy Halloween!’ She flopped down on top of him and the resulting tickling-screaming match was his last fight of the evening.

He ate three Reeses Peanut Butter cups, felt sick, and eventually passed out right there on the couch.

He woke up to Matt texting him in capital letters for once,

“I AM INTERNET FAMOUS. MAKE IT STOP.”

And indeed, DD’s dramatized ghost story, which included the phrase ‘And then she just sucker-punched him right in the fuckin’ gourd,’ was now viral. It was already becoming a meme.

Matt was scandalized. He wanted Peter to delete his twitter account. Peter told him that this was the price of fame. He then rolled over and checked on Wade who reported via video chat that he had yet to be eaten by the cat, but he had an eye on her.

Bella purred through the phone while piled up on Wade’s chest. At least the lower half of his body was now reconnected to and more or less in sync with the upper half.

“I dunno, kid,” Wade said. “That was a pretty bitchin’ Halloween. Don’t think they got a chance in hell in topping that parade next year.”

Peter was pretty sure that next year, the whole city would be crawling with armed police. But in the meantime, yeah. It had been pretty exciting.

“Next year, I’m wearing a costume on top of my costume,” Peter told him.

“Ooooh. We should go as the Three Musketeers. You can be the chocolate, I’ll be the nougat, and Red can be the wrapper.”

Once he’d recovered from the brilliance of this plan, Peter left Wade to Bella’s comfort. He rolled over on the couch and found himself staring into a jack o’ lantern on the counter.

“You,” he said, “Cannot be stopped.”


End file.
